Far Away
by Michelle
Summary: Natasha Romanov has to walk through the desert to make it home.
1. Far

**Far Away**

_I've spent a lot of time in hot, dry environments like I describe in this story, but I've never been to Budapest, so other than what Wikipedia tells me, I don't really know if what I've written is accurate. Feel free to tell me if it isn't!_

* * *

Natasha Romanov, trained killer, is walking alone through the desert scrub. It's hot enough that it feels like she's wearing a blanket over her face, and her water has long since turned tepid.

Distances are hard to judge out here, so when she first sees the cabin, she knows it could either be twenty minutes or two hours away. By the way the sun is hanging low over the mountains in the distance, she hopes it's the former.

She's been here before, but Natasha takes a new approach to the cabin whenever she's able, though after so many years of use, she's starting to run out of options. It's beautiful country, though, and she likes the way the same terrain can look completely different when you stand in a different spot.

Natasha adjusts her backpack and continues picking her way through the scrub at the same pace she's used for the past hour. She'll get there before the sun goes down or she won't.

She can see a wisp of smoke rising from the cabin now, and with no one out here to see her, she lets herself smile.

He's there already, then, waiting for her.

They have several places just like this one, tucked near (but not too near) most of SHEILD's bases, or, at least, most of the ones that the two of them frequent. When Natasha first discovered this habit of Clint's, she'd laughed, finding it ridiculous.

Budapest changed her mind.

They'd spent the better part of a month off the radar after that particular disaster, holed up in Clint's tiny, two-room flat on the edge of the city, only going out for coffee and condoms.

When they'd cleared their heads and reported in, Fury had been, well, furious. She's pretty sure that he didn't mind that they took the time away, just that they didn't clear it with him first. Fury likes to pretend that he's got them on a leash.

Still, they've learned to check in before disappearing for any length of time. This, though, was the first time she'd left a note for Fury and not Coulson.

She doesn't bother coming up with an excuse for the lump that forms in her throat.

Natasha needs this break and she's grateful for the time off after the Loki . . . incident. Barring Thor, she's not sure where the rest of the team wandered off to, but neither does she really care.

All she cares about is making it to that cabin, where she can finally relax, maybe even get some sleep.

Before she knows it, the sun is casting its last rays over the red earth and she's at that cabin, finally.

"You could drive out here, you know," Clint notes when she walks through the door. "There is a road." He doesn't look up from where he's stirring a pot on a camp stove. It's an old, familiar argument, and she slides into it easily.

"I like the exercise."

She knows that Clint knows the truth. That she needs the walk to clear her mind of death and blood. That she needs the time alone in her own head before she's ready to be alone in the cabin with him.

She drops her boots next to his on the little mat that lies next to the door.

"Besides, then I get to have you cook for me. Well, if you can call it that." She sits down on the floor next to him.

"I'll have you know I spent a good 20 minutes throwing together this fine repast, young lady," he mutters. He continues to stir the pot. Despite her comments, it smells good.

He turns his head a little, quirks his lips. "You stink, Romanov."

She laughs and pushes his shoulder. "You stink, Barton. I smell."

She leans her head on his shoulder, watching him stir the pot.

It's shchi, an old Russian standby that she taught him to make on a quiet day long ago. Her mother (her real mother, not the Red Room handler who told Natasha she was her mother) used to make it when she was a child, and it's one of the few memories she has of a time before everything was taken from her, back when she had a chance at a normal life.

She's very comfortable here on the floor, tucked up against Clint's side, and she's almost asleep when she feels him shift, then kiss the top of her head.

"Come on, Tash. I think it's done."

He helps her to her feet, then leads her over to the small table in one corner of the room.

They don't talk while they eat, preferring the silence. That they both can sit in a room without nattering is probably the main reason that they work so well together. That they both want to is probably the reason why she fought so hard to get him back.

Natasha finishes before he does. She's a quick eater. Clint likes to savor things (though he would say that it's because he actually likes to taste the food before he swallows), but then, he's always been far more patient than she'll ever be.

She washes her bowl out in the bucket that serves as their sink and leaves it to dry. It's arid here, so she knows it won't take long.

She's tired from her hike (_and the funeral and the fighting and her life and all this damn thinking_), so instead of sitting back down at the table with Clint, she walks over to where he's laid out their sleeping bags on top of two old army cots. The cots are pushed together, and she would make a crack about his assumptions except that he's right and she doesn't want to break the comfortable silence.

Instead, Natasha just smiles and pulls off her clothes, stripping down to her underwear. Her nose wrinkles as she catches a whiff of her shirt, but she tosses them toward her pack and lies down. There will be plenty of time to clean up tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week. Whatever.

Clint joins her a few minutes later, and when he pulls her to him, she goes unresisting. With her head on his shoulder and her arm across his stomach, she just breathes him in.

The tension slips out of her, and she sleeps.

* * *

_A special thank you to all the reviews, favorites, and general encouragement for my last story, _Fearless! _I appreciate it so much! Reviews (of all sorts) make my day!_

_Next chapter up hopefully tonight, when the story will earn it's rating :)  
_


	2. Away

_Sorry I didn't get this out last night! I certainly meant to, but then life intervened! Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed so far!_

* * *

Natasha wakes after midnight with a start. She sits straight up, wild eyed and drenched in sweat, still half asleep and looking for a mindless green monster.

A hand is at her shoulder and she jerks away, letting out a particularly undignified shriek. She'll be embarrassed about that later, but at this moment she's shivering with fear.

She twists aroundm arm raised and ready for a fight with a half mumbled protestation on her lips.

Breathing hard, she stares uncomprehendingly at the man in the bed beside her. His skin has a bluish cast to it, not green, and after a long moment, she comes back to herself enough to realize that the blue light is just that – light from the LED lamp next to their beds.

"Fuck," she expels with a breath, then buries her face in her hands.

"Hey, Tash."

Clint's voice is soothing, a balm to her frayed nerves. He already knows what the dream was about; she's come awake because of the same image every night now for a week. He's been there to hold her each time, just like she's been there for him, and while their ability to find mutual solace is comforting, the routine is starting to wear on her nerves.

The dreams weren't as bad at first.

The first night, they had both been too tired to dream. After dinner at a small Middle Eastern place she somehow let Tony rope them into ("_Hanging out with super soldiers and gods means we have to step up our game, Tash"_), she and Clint had barely made it back to his quarters before collapsing in a heap onto the bed. That first night, they'd slept for sixteen hours straight, dreamless and unmoving. It wasn't until they'd emerged from their cocoon that reality started to hit.

She hasn't slept through a night since then. And as her insomnia increases, so too does the intensity of the dream. What started out as vague unease with flashes of green at the corners has turned into strange amalgams of past missions and recent events that, when combined, dredge up every regret and fear she's ever had.

Clint hasn't been faring much better; she's been the comforter just as often as the comforted.

"Come on, let's sleep. I know you're exhausted." Clint pulls her back down with him, tucking her head under his chin. He puts the book he was reading aside and moves to turn off the lamp, but Natasha stops him.

"Don't." Almost as an afterthought, she adds, "Please."

Clint nods and lays back.

She tries to calm herself down, she really does. She tries to banish images of screaming monsters and aliens and blood splatters from her brain and fall back asleep. She is so very, very tired, the kind of tired that takes root behind your eyes and shuts out everything else. She wants to sleep so badly, and if there's anywhere it could happen, it should be here, far away from civilization and curled up next to the only person she's ever really trusted to have her back.

But now her brain is going and running through recent events like a broken record and she can't seem to shake it and there's no turning back. She's awake now, whether she likes it or not, and from Clint's breathing, she can tell that he is too. It's highly probable that he never even slept in the first place.

Finally, because the silence is crushing, she asks "What was it like?"

"What was what like?" But he knows what she's asking, so she remains silent and waits for him to speak again.

He takes a deep breath, and she can see that he wants to tell her something, but maybe that he just doesn't know how. They've been like that a lot lately.

"It's kind of . . . hazy, I guess. Foggy." He pauses and swallows, as if he's settling on something.

"I was awake for every bit of it, but I couldn't do anything about it." He swallows again, harder this time, hesitating.

"What? What is it?" she shifts against him, turning onto her side so she can look at him in the dim light.

"He asked me about you, all of SHEILD, I mean, but I . . . I told him everything, Nat. I didn't even hesitate."

"Yeah," she says, because there really isn't anything else to say. They've been over it before, and they both feel guilty about the whole stupid situation. How he could have prevented the entire fucking ordeal if he'd just been able to get a shot off. How she could have done the same if Fury hadn't sent her off to Russia the week before.

The what-ifs are maddening reminders that they are human, they have limits, and there isn't any going back. So they're silent then, content to stare at each other and bask in the knowledge that even if none of the other Avengers (or whatever the hell they're calling themselves) were mortal enough to fuck everything up, well, at least they had each other.

Just like old times.

Eventually, though, he adds, breaking the silence and sounding a lot like his old self again, "Damn good thing you always could kick my ass."

Maybe it's taken longer than usual, but they're joking about Loki now, and hey that's better than the alternative, so she takes his comment like it was intended and returns his grin.

"Bet you didn't tell him that."

He actually blushes a little. "Oh, I did. He just didn't believe me. Thought I was just a fool in love." He says it with a little rise in his voice, and his playfulness is catching.

She raises an eyebrow. "Love is for children."

It's an old refrain, the way they dance around the word, never quite admitting what's perfectly obvious to both of them and probably half of SHEILD as well.

"Not for washed up old circus freaks?" He's got that gleam in his eye, and Natasha licks her lips before she responds.

"Especially not for them."

He kisses her then, all tongue and teeth, and she winds her arms around his head, pulling him closer. They're both avoiding conversations they need to have, but it's too late for those kinds of chats anyway, and she certainly hasn't had the amount of alcohol such things require.

So instead of talking, she hikes her leg up around his waist and uses the angle to grind against him. Clint groans in response and runs one hand down her side to grab her hip.

"Fuck, Clint," she hisses out between kisses, turning her head as he nuzzles her throat.

It's good between them, this whatever-it-is they have. They move well together, always have, even long before they took the action to the sheets. The intuition that keeps them alive in the field is the same intuition that makes the sex so damn hot, even when they're in the middle of nowhere and his tongue kind of tastes like the sour cabbage they ate three hours ago and they're trying really hard to avoid bigger issues.

She knows she's overanalyzing everything, but Natasha has never been good at telling her brain to shut up. Thankfully, Clint has always been able to trick her into refocusing her attention.

Especially Clint when he's only wearing his jockey shorts.

He's got his hand in her panties now, and she arches against him as he slips a finger inside of her. He exhales sharply at her wetness and groans into her throat before roughly peeling the thin fabric off her body.

She runs her hands over his back, fingers ghosting over the bandages that cover wounds from a plate glass window in New York. She's so lucky that he's here with her, now, and not lying in some hospital on life support or worse. She came so close to losing this man, this other part of her, and if those are tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, at least there's only Clint here to see them.

She can feel him, thick and heavy against her thigh as he helps her out of her bra, and as soon as she's completely bare, she reaches out to her pack for a foil-wrapped packet, while he traces fingers over her stomach.

Easily finding what she's looking for, she returns Clint's earlier favor by helping him out of his own underwear, using her feet in what she considers a particularly agile fashion. They work together to slip the condom on, and she can tell that he's already close by the blissed out expression that washes over his face as she touches him.

Greedy for him, she brings him down for a kiss.

"I want you now." Her voice belies the command, however, and even to her own ears it sounds like pleading.

When he enters her, she moans, loudly, and not for the first time is she glad that they're in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

He's slow with her tonight, and the pace that normally would have her flipping him and taking over, is leaving her breathless instead.

Suddenly, she needs to see his eyes, needs to know that he's right there with her, and he isn't going anywhere. She grabs the side of his face to guide his eyes toward hers, feels the roughness of his stubble, and she can see her own feelings reflected in his gaze there.

Their breath mingling, it isn't long before she's clenching around him and crying out, and he follows in her wake soon after.

They lay huddled close together for a long time before Clint pulls out to dispose of the condom. By the time he comes back, Natasha is very nearly out, but like a dream his voice reaches her anyway.

"Sweet dreams, Tash."

* * *

_Now that I've reached the end of this, my brain is telling me to keep going. What do you guys think? Add more? Stop now before I make everyone's eyes bleed?_

_Thanks for reading!  
_


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